This is why I smacked my head on the desk repeatedly when they introduced and then REMOVED the Gold/Silver/Bronze packs. Something that gives everyone a good shot at ALL items, lets them pick the TYPE of items they want to get, brings supply to the GTN and EAware STILL get money from it! And then they removed it?! I don't know what the devs are thinking sometimes, I really don't. Although I'd happily take a puff of whatever the hell they are smoking...

Just do what City of Heroes did with the Architect Entertainment system; let you create your own instances for people to play through. You could pick a map, pick the density of enemy spawns, customise enemy groups, customise triggers, ambushes etc, dialogue for the NPCs, have allys or enemies fighting enemies, link missions up in a story arc... Guess what? The best bit was it was a FREE UPDATE. No worry about credit inflation, they removed all money drops from mobs and reduced exp gain too. Mobs did drop tickets that could be traded for cool stuff. The system worked like a charm, and saw a LOT of use. Which, of course, since it was a good idea we'll NEVER see it in TOR. Too much time spent on something they can't monetise. Although I'm sure the dumb greedy sods would try

Sheesh, toe-mar-toe, toe-may-toe. Fine, whatever. It's not like we have a 'Save Preferences' button in this game or anything

Because REMOVING content is the best idea ever Sadly its one the devs already seem subscribed to....so hurray for that nonsense...

Still waiting on this option. I'm all for people being able to turn them off, sure. But, yeah... look at that view count, now back to me, now back to that page count, now back to me. Sadly, this request isn't me, because I'm in game and this is not... But it should be. Just sayin'.

I too think this was a stupid design decision. A very simple fix, IMO, is what they did for Cartel mounts that come with Speeder Piloting I when first bought, but collection version does not; instead of giving you a full modded version from collection, just give an empty shell. Boom. Problem solved. I've got two or three of these items 'in collection' in name only, which is a real pain in the jacksie given the devs 'genuis' decision to not only remove these items from the CM but also remove the B/S/G packs which had a better chance of dropping armour parts. What is the point of developing something, spending time and resources on it, then make it virtually unavailable? Design 101 failure there.

The problem there is that, as of now, there is NO supply for the cartel cert items. Well, ok, maybe a tiny trickle of stuff priced at many many millions, if it's even on the GTN at all. I just object to such sheer weight of items being locked behind real money purchases, or proxy purchases (certs). Then again, I shouldn't be too surprised; in Mass Effect 3 there were more 'Rare' items than there were Common or Uncommon and the consistency for drops from packs was awful. Pretty clear drive for people to spend real money there too... Stupid.

Wow. I'm surprised there's not even some negative posts on this yet, thats usually the response whenever anyone mentions changes to the way decorations are 'earned' here People must be so mad about 5.0 (not incorrectly IMO) that they can't even spare any complaining for this, heh.

So, as someone who like to RP, likes to muck around with the Strongholds in game and likes to create a good-looking, lore-friendly space with the tools we as players are given, more and more I think that the Devs really couldn't give a damn about Strongholds anymore. Yes, we still get new decorations... every time in Cartel Packs. And, as the CM stuff gets 'circulated' (read, removed entirely until they pop them up on 'sale' when they need a cash injection) huge swathes of those decorations are being removed from supply. Not reduced, not 'available through other, possibly harder methods'. Just outright removed. This whole arrangement smacks of laziness, neglect and just a general situation that sucks for players like me who are forever stuck in the 'have not' category; we weren't around at the time the packs were common and, presumably, more items were common. Since those items now have a nearly non-existent supply, the very few on the GTN are now prohibitively expensive. I thought the problem was resolved when the vastly superior Bronze/Silver/Gold packs and corresponding mount, weapon and decoration packs were added to the GTN, but then someone clearly decided that wasn't the RIGHT way to get people to spend money and pulled them. Which was bloody STUPID; why remove a system that ensures at least a dripfeed of supply to the GTN when that benefits the studio (constant cash flow) AND players (more supply to meet demand)? As it stands, the system is neglected and, frankly, broken. What is the point of having content developed, put in game, and then a relatively large percentage of players and nearly all new players (if they come at all) are permanently barred from using by arbitrary barriers like the CM and Cartel Certs (another thing that no longer exists in meaningful numbers in game) Given the changes coming in 5.0, such as the removal of comms which will effect at least one of the deco vendors on the fleet, my pipe dream is that all the decos vendors will just sell their stock for credits, including the cartel cert vendor, bringing a new injection of stock and supply to players and the GTN. But that would make too much sense and be too nice to players, so I'm sure that's not going to happen.... *sigh*

Nope, sorry, they've ****ed us over too. -No new emotes in, like, forever -Emote locks behind CM and Pack drops, with a supply that is pretty non-existent at this point -No new dyes in, like, forever. And the ones we do have were either designed by a colour blind person or are locked behind, you guessed it, stupidly expensive CM one offs or pack drops. Which, again; have no damn supply! -Entire swathes of decorations locked behind cartel certs which, oh lookie, don't drop anywhere except from packs that are no longer on the market! And, again, nothing new added (except in packs) in fricking forever. So, nope. RPers have been fisted just as much, in different ways, as everyone else

Anything suggesting improvements, upgrades and just ANY damn attention to SHs and decorations (especially supply a demand, I've been vocal about that for ages. Spot on, man.) is welcome. /Signed

I don't see the need for limiting it to 4 in the first place. 1) Decorating SHs with 2 (or more) floors, its easier to be able to place one vendor on each floor and save running back and forth. Yes, I know it's a minimally irritating thing, but its still just an inconvenience that isn't needed. 2) Given how for personal SHs it's nigh impossible to get any of the personnel decorations (given the majority are locked behind cartel certs) it'd be nice to be thrown a bone with the one personnel we CAN easily get. 3) You can have 99 of the various prefab droids. What the heck is the point of a limit of 4?

So long as my Agent gets to put a blaster bolt square between Koth's eyes for thievin' mah ship, I don't care too much. Seriously. I am the damn Commander. Don't. Touch. MY. Ship.

Except drops are pretty much useless for anyone who uses data crystals to slot their gear, or people who have characters who craft. All THAT change has done is made it nigh impossible to get certain world drops, including some sets, which makes life hell for us RPers who are trying to get certain items. My BH is going to have to deal with the Eternal Championship when she gets to 65, because that is the ONLY place you can get a certain type of leg armour drop, since the other options were level 50 Corellia Drops that never make it to GTN anymore, thanks to the changes in drops.

Or, y'know, they could add more In-Game, Gameplay related ways to get rep, rather than having it all gated behind the CM. But, hey, what do I know? People complain and ***** about everything being in the CM. Make suggestion about moving previously CM gated stuff into the game for gameplay based rewards. Get told that this stuff belongs in the CM and they should do more CM stuff. Seems legit!

Wooooooww.....no. No, it really isn't. You not only missed the point but you failed at basic reading comprehension. My suggestion to keep the CURRENT method in game AS WELL AS the suggested crystal method was to avoid the usual strawman argument that comes up, i.e. 'waah, doing this will suck because I have lots of cartel certs and I won't have an advantage anymore, waah!' So, no. Not really in the slightest, no. I'm asking for a more reasonable method to increase supply of these items so that people have a more realistic chance of seeing and using decorations than 'Once in a blue moon or if you grind millions and millions of credits.' One Cert Personel decoration usually doesn't sell for less than 12m. I'm sorry, but for a non CM pack item that is STUPID.

On the one hand, the First Order has Stormtroopers that have not only semi-functional armour but the impressive ability to aim, hit targets AND fight in something approaching military cohesion. (At least based on the old trilogy, the troops in Rogue One look like they have sorted their **** out a bit, haha) On the other hand...Vader would grandad slap the **** out of Kylo and everyone else in his way, Because, y'know...Vader

I was wondering how long it'd be before someone went full hyperbolic on this thread. Good job. Seriously, though, the lack of love for the non-CM section of decorations is just damn stupid. I realise I 'shouldn't be surprised' etc, given this is EAware we're talking about, but I'm pretty sure most other games that have some form of housing at least attempt to keep a balance between stuff you can earn/find in game and those that are purely from the cash shop. Right now it's more like 90% CM, 10% actually playing the damn game. And that's just poor design no matter how much you wrap it up. (Unless all you care about is profit metric,s of course...)

At the moment, there is nothing but Rakata decorations in the Crystal vendor, and I'm pretty sure that the devs have outright forgotten that was a thing they added to the game, given it's not in a Cartel Pack... Given how rarely the Cert Cartel packs come around, why not add those decorations to the crystal vendor AS WELL (Not instead of, so you have two options now instead of just one, nobody loses etc etc.) to make sure the supply is something other than 'pretty much nonexistant'. I'm all for making the costs reflective, not like it's hard to hit the 1000 crystal cap on level 65s these days, anyway. I mean, heaven forbid the devs actually add something for people who don't throw their wallet at the screen every time a new Pack comes out... TL;DR: Add cartel cert decorations to the crystal vendor as well, so people with stocked certs can still buy things for 'free', and everyone else can have a shot at getting decorations too. Everyone wins.

You probably walked into a base camp. I.e. the ludicrous HP levels and rapid damage should hint you are NOT supposed to be there.

Everyone in the Lowbrow Lounge on NS, including Jonas Balkar and, more awkwardly, the dancers, are all packing swords now. Guess they had some rough clients?

Rounds 1-5 just need you to have about 208-216 gear, an ok companion set to heal and a quick read of the Dulfy guides. They're not that hard, given even a total schmuck like me can do 1-5 with only a little stress. Round 6, however, is utter cheating hax and I threw in the towel after my two main characters got pasted repeatedly

As an RPer from a game that had chat bubbles, I'm gobsmacked that something so small has been on the books for YEARS and still not been implemented. Funny how they can find time to chuck out more garbage and recolours and remixes for the CM and gamble packs, though. Oh well...'priorities' right?

That may be true. However I'm pretty sure the weeklies, which are the only source of the reward tokens, only work while solo. Kind of defeats the point of being an intro to Ops level foes if you can't actually group for them, IMO

I'd be surprised if that was the case. I mean, I do not spend money on packs, period. Yet, when the B/S/G packs came out, I happily dropped some money on them and not only got items I wanted, but sold on the stuff I didn't want on the GTN. Supply for demand, and demand for supply on the CM. But hey, what goes on in the heads of some of the marketing and CM devs must just be damn weird, and I don't want to try and understand some of that 'logic', heh. I've got enough crazy as it is, thanks!